The subject matter of the present disclosure relates to illumination arts, lighting arts, solid-state lighting arts, and related arts.
Improvements in lighting technology often rely on finite light sources (e.g., light-emitting diode (LED) devices) to generate light. In many applications, LED devices offer superior performance to conventional light sources (e.g., incandescent and halogen lamps). However, all LED devices produce a near Lambertian intensity distribution. This characteristic of LED devices causes light from a bare LED device to impinge on a flat target surface with an illuminance distribution that is uneven and/or that varies across the flat target surface. For at least this reason, lighting devices will often utilize a lens that can distribute light to achieve a more uniform illuminance distribution on the flat target surface.